French klezmorim Nano Peylet and
Denis Cuinot transmogrify Yiddish songs into chamber music, violating the play-only-what-you-can-carry klezmer dictum by combining the familiar clarinet with, of all things, piano. The amount of open space in these academic-flavored compositions is initially shocking, but the result is music as bold as I've ever heard. Gorgeous subtleties of tone and timbre elbow wild rhythmic liberties, hairpin mood swings and drastic volume changes that would make serious passages seem like vaudeville set ups if they weren't so convincing as soliloquys. Not for nothing are the Marx Brothers recalled in the liner notes. ~ Bob Tarte